Blackdog

I rough cut it to shape and carefully aligned it to the headstock. Using a piece of binding adhesive tape (very strong) as a hinge at the nut end, I applied the glue. Folded it back in place and fixed the other end with some more tape to keep it from moving around, and clamped it. When the glue dried, it was cut flush with the headstock sides using the table router, and then the tuner holes were drilled. The rest of the evening was spent fine carving the neck and finessing the top carve. I believe that both will be ready with just one more carving session. Then I have to sand the neck, top and sides up to at least 320 and the neck can be set in place. Only with the neck in place i will drill the holes for the tailpiece, and find (empirically) the proper location for the ABR-1 bridge (i.e. the location that provides the correct intonation with the limited adjustment range of the bridge).

Now a bit about headstock overlays. The blackface of the Gibson headstocks bearing the logo and other cosmetic appointments, has always been an overlay. Back in the day Gibson was using a thin holly wood headsock veneer (less than 1/16" - 1.5mm) on Standard grade guitars, and a somewhat thicker (3/32" - 2.4mm) holly overlay on the Custom grade ones. The latter one got the multi-ply binding, while the former one was plain. Around the 70s they switched to some kind of synthetic black fiber, but the holly overlays returned for the reissues. The pearl logo was inlaid on those in an oversized recess roughly following the outer limits of the logo, using black stained fish glue as filler. After application to the headstock face it was sprayed black, including the scoop for the TR adjustment nut. Then the pearl inlays (and the binding when applicable) were scraped clean, and it was ready for clearcoating. I commissioned the overlays, using my own logo, to a German supplier. Just the holly ractangles with the inlaid pearl. But it's going to take still a few weeks for them to deliver. Since I had a logo already cut (albeit a slightly bigger one, that I previously bought from DePaule), I decided to give it a try at making my own overlay for the LP build. I do not have holly, but I had a very nice 1.6mm thick maple veneer. Since it's going to be painted black anyway, and the only visible part will be the whitish edges on the sides of the headstock, I decided that maple was just as good (and whitish enough) for the purposes. First step was to scribe the outline of the inlay, and draw the opening for the TR access scoop. Using the dremel and the routing base I routed the recess for the inlay and cut the opening for the TR adjustment access. The first operation was rather critical, as the plate is 1.6mm thick and the recess is 1.2mm deep (for a 1.5mm thick pearl inlay). I did not use fish glue ( early on I decided not to use the "vintage correct" glues for this build), just plain epoxy colored with ferrite powder. Some hours later it could be sanded flat, and the headstock overlay plate is ready.

Thanks Wes, I'm not completely happy with it, but I too believe that it will work just fine.

Now it was time to advance the fretboard a bit more. Drilling for the side dots after scraping: Tortoise side dots in place. The fretboard is now ready for gluing to the neck.

After a bit of sanding, the neck is now rough carved. And I have a the best possible heel with the available material. As you can see, the heel is rather short, and a bit more abrupt than I had expected. It is still a bit deeper than necessary (as in body depth), so the final heel will look just a tad longer. All in all I thing it's workable and don't see enough justification for scrapping this neck and starting over. What do you think.

Report of the progress made during the weekend. Like I said in a past post, I made a mistake when cutting the neck blank for the 355. The mistake was started way back, in the plan I drew, in which I placed the neck-to-body joint at the 20th fret instead of the 19th. From the plan I made the template, and from the template I cut the blank. And though I normally cut the blanks with some slack, the correction of the neck/body junction back to the 19th fret left me with a rather marginal amount of wood for the heel. Before commiting to use this neck or to build a new one I had no other chance than to work a bit more on it. I had a good feeling, so I went on with the neck carving. First I cut the headstock outline, so that I could shape the neck-to-headstock transition too. Template went on, bandsawed the rough shape and the table router did the rest. This wider headstock will be the multi-bound Custom style. Then I broke out my trusty rasps and rough shaped the neck.

Thank you WezV and Scott, you're very kind. I got to advance the build a bit more tonight. The neck was brought to the width of the fingerboard, and the cutaway area was adjusted to flow nicely into the neck heel. And I did a preliminary carving of the neck. It is not finished by any means, but most of the unnecessary wood has already been removed, the transition into the headstock has been roughed in and the same was done with the heel. I couldn't resist taking some pics side by side with the real Gibson reissue. I am really very excited with the results so far !

Great work so far. The neck looks great and the different headstock wood is a nice idea. Not a fan of the volute you implemented, though. But I'm too much of a traditionalist sometimes... Not sure about the pickup sampler approach either, but that's the customer request and you have to honour it. Keep it up, it will be gorgeous.

Thanks IPA, very kind of you. I am pretty much discovering the pleasures of working with plastic binding. Before these Gibson inspired builds I used exposed maple as faux-binding on the bodies, and different wood laminations for fretboard bindings. It should have been the other way around, but this is all new to me. Last night I scraped the LP board binding. It's pretty much finished for what I want at this stage. The final touches will come with the polishing of the fretboard after the final fret work has been done. I also installed the side dots. The vintage correct tortoise side dots came courtesy of Bareknucles Pickups, they send a free pick with every pickup purchase. That's very nice of them considering some people are charging up to 15 euros for a set of these !! Anyway, I could get 3 sets of dots out of one pick, not bad. I had used the StewMac plastic rods and 2mm bronze wire for side dots before, never individual dots. So at first I thought it was going to be a pain to install these things in place, but it was surprisingly easy. I drilled the holes just past the binding, slightly into the wood. One at a time, first put a drop of acetone in the hole. Then using tweezers I put the dot in place and lightly pressed it into the hole. Held it there for ten seconds until the acetone evaporated a bit. And that was it, after 10 mins they could be sanded flat and voilá: tortoise side dots that would make Ted McCarty smile !! The fretboard was now ready enough to be glued to the neck. Left it clamped overnight and this morning I had a neck ready for carving. When I tapered it, I purposedly left the sides of the neck about 1-2 tenths of mm wider than the fretboard along the sides. So the first step will be to fine adjust the taper of the neck to the fretboard's width. Next, the side of the body at the cutaway has to be adjusted flush with the neck side at the heel. Then the proper carving will start. This is already looking like a serious Les Paul… (Question to Mods: I just violated the 4 pics per post max rule, but in a previous post I only used 3 pics. Does it compensate ? )

Thanks for the replies, It's quite interesting, I got one of each ! - HVLP conversion gun running off a normal compressor - Full HVLP turbine system (plus airbrush for detail) - Full conventional system (plus airbrush for detail) It's starting to look like any of the systems will actually get the job properly done. It maybe just a matter of preference at this point ?

The first approach to leveling the binding to the boards, and covering the fret ends was done with my (pseudo) table router and a flush-cut bit. Those plastic chips are so much fun !!! The will stick to everything by static, only way to get rid of them was with the vacuum cleaner !!! This leaves the final leveling to be done by hand-scraping. This is what it looks like at the moment: Almost there now.......

The two boards were now ready to get the binding. The application of the binding was fairly simple, I glued them with CA. 1mm thick, cream binding for the LP and 1.5mm thick, white binding for the 355. I left it a hair proud of the back of the boards, so that it will need some scraping to leave it flush before gluing to the neck. Of course, on the topside, the binding is taller than the fretboard. Even a bit taller than the fret ends.

A bit more progress on the fretboards... Frets went in. I use the StewMac fretting caul on the drill press. This is the first time I fret a board that is not attached to the neck. It is obviously a lot easier on just the board sitting flat !! Now it was the time to fret the 355 neck. The fret ends need to be filed flush with the unbound fretboard sides (Gibson style, remember ?). The fret ends were first cut tight against the board with the StewMac flush-cut fret cutter. For the final filing I built this tool, it worked like a charm. It uses the back of the fretboard for guidance and files at 90 degrees to that.

Once radiused, the boards were re-slotted, so that the slots fit the fret tang without much slack and follow the radius of the board. Next step was to taper the sides of the boards, considering the width of the binding still to be applied: 1.5mm for the 355 and 1mm for the LP. This was done using the table router, with a straight edge serving as guide for the template bit. Here both boards have been tapered: And next time I will start with the fretting.

I have tried the searchfunction, but could not find anything conclusive. I've tried the internet and I kind of get the impression that HVLP is mostly intended for large areas, but it's not completely clear to me... I will be spraying nitro and want to be able to do traditional sunbursts and the such. The primary, if not only use will be guitar finishing. I don't currently own ANY spraying equipment. Should I buy a good 4-stage HVLP system, or would it be better to stay with a traditional compressor and a good quality detail gun ? What would you, the more experienced guys, do if you were buying from scratch now ? Your help will be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Luis

And now it was time for some old-fashioned radiusing... Prepared two 12"sanding blocks. First with 80 and 100 grits and then, for the final touches, with 120 and 180 grits. After a bit of polishing: By the way, you may have noticed that I incurred in another vintage correctness violation for the LP board... After debating for a while if I was going to use the normal acrylic inlays or if I was going to spend 100+ euros for the "correct" cellulose nitrate inlays... I decided to go with real MOP. Looks a lot classier.

The pearl pieces were then glued in place, using epoxy and the appropriate saw dust for filling. And after sand-leveling it is already looking good.

Once dried, the boards are scribed around the pearl pieces with a very sharp hobby knife. The pieces are then removed (with acetone) and the board cleaned. For the inlay work I use a Dremel with the StewMac routing base. These are pretty large pearl pieces, there's a lot of wood removal involved, I use a Dremel 1/8" routing bit for this coarse removal. The fine routing was done with the StewMac inlay routing bits, two different sizes, for the closest possible fit.

OK. I'm back from holidays. There is such a contrast between my sunny stay in Tenerife and the cloudy, chilly, rainy weather that NL had waiting for me, that I had to hide in the workshop and do some work to keep my mind busy... Worked a lot on the fretboards. I need these before I can carve the necks. The BRW board was already thicknessed, so it was cut to the width that my slotting jig can handle and pre-slotted it. These slots are for guidance only, the final slots were done after radiusing, and follow the radius of the board. The ebony board needed thicknessing first, then the same process was applied for the preliminary slots. The centerlines of the boards were marked and the inlay pieces aligned and glued in place. I use a dense nail polish for the gluing and let it dry overnight.

One last installment before I go on holidays. This is the slotted template for my jig, based on a scale of 24 3/4" and following the Rule of 18. Look at the small differences against a normal 24 9/16" scale template. See you !

Thanks Eddie, The carve templates were made by user ExNihilo of the MLP Forum. He generously made them available to the general public here. It renders a very credible 50s LP carve.

Very little progress to report. It's been a hell of a week at the day job... I could only remove some wood from the back of the 355 neck. This is how I wanted to leave it to see if it remains stable. Additionally, at the MLP Forum, a member came up with actual measurements of a 57 goldtop's cavities. The estimations of the depths I used were reasonably accurate for the main route (within 1 mm), but the secondary route (the "T" shaped one) was a bit shallow. Not that it matters a lot, but repositioned the template and deepened the routings accordingly. Now I will be on holiday for 3 weeks. When I come back I'll start with the fretboards and then with the body of the 355. See you in late August.

Thanks ! I found this acetone thing to work great, but I do not have a lot of experience with plastic binding... May I ask what do you use ?

And the same process for the bridge pickup. Compared to what you would find in a modern guitar, these cavities look rather shallow. But the SD Antiquity P90s I plan to use here fit perfectly well.

More progress... The vintage P90 cavities were done in two steps. For this I made a new template. Here you can see the template in position for the first route of the neck pickup cavity. Cavities were routed perpendicular to the neck angle in the old guitars. While there's a lot of info available on the 58-60 Bursts, with figures obtained from direct measurements on the original guitars, not so much information is available on the earlier goldtops. So the depths of the routings have been estimated from pictures of the original guitars. I followed the figures used by one builder over at the MLP forum: 13/16" for the deeper route and 5/8" for the shallower one. These are the figures for the front edge of the neck pickup. The same settings on the router are used for the bridge pickup, since the template will be raised over the top by the steeper neck angle, the routes will be proportionally shallower for that position. This is the first route of the neck pu cavity. Turned the template around, aligned and did the second route for the neck pickup. This is the final result.